DeSantis: Russian hacking didn’t affect ’16 vote totals
Governor acknowleged that FBI believes at least one Florida county was infiltrated
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida’s Secretary of State would “do what’s needed” to shore up elections systems in response to the Mueller Report stating that the FBI believed at least one Florida county was infiltrated by Russian intelligence in 2016.
But DeSantis did not say if there would be further follow-up with the FBI or whether the state would launch its own investigation.
At a news conference Friday at Amway Center before the Orlando Magic’s playoff game with the Toronto Raptors, DeSantis said he had not yet been briefed on the Mueller Report.
“I can tell you from the Secretary of State’s perspective, we want to make sure that this stuff’s protected and we want to have clear, transparent and honest vote totals,” DeSantis said. “I don’t know that the hacking would have affected that. I think it was more some of the voter information, but that’s still very significant. We obviously have an interest in maintaining [honest vote totals].”
On Thursday, Secretary of State Laurel Lee had said that while county election offices were targeted by Russian email “spearphishing,” she maintained none of them had actually been compromised. She added the FBI hadn’t told the state which county was affected.
In 2016, more than 50 counties contracted with the Tallahassee company VR Systems, which according to the Mueller Report and a leaked National Security Agency intelligence document was impersonated by Russian hackers.
Volusia County officials opened an email sent by hackers but did not click on the infected attachment, its elections supervisor said Thursday.
DeSantis also would not commit to signing either of the testing-while-driving bills making their way through the Legislature.
“We kind of let the legislative process work itself out,” DeSantis said. “If there are times when we need to weigh in, I’ll do it privately, [but] I have not done it on that.”
He said he was supportive of the idea of preventing texting-while-driving, but “we need to enforce this routinely. We can’t just have one person out of a thousand get pulled over. You have to be willing to [enforce that], then that will send a signal think people message.”
The governor, flanked by Magic CEO Alex Martins and Jason Siegel, CEO of the Central Florida Sports Commission at the same podium where team coaches had just answered questions, said he was thrilled by the Magic’s playoff appearance.
“You can feel the excitement in the community,” DeSantis said. “It’s a really big deal. I grew up in Florida .. and I remember when the Magic started. And I remember the old Magic teams, Scott Skiles and those guys. Some lean years to start, it was tough.” and then I’ll will get the